At the forefront of the retail revolution
Born in Poland, Maciej Dyjas was educated in Poland and Germany. He spent the first decade of his career doing business consultancy in Germany, before returning to Poland, where he built up the new face of EMPiK from scratch and then expanded the EMF brand portfolio.
How has doing business in Poland changed between the early years and now? What are the key features for doing business here now?
It is obviously difficult to be short when describing a revolution. Really the changes in Poland are multidimensional. One key change is that the market has become much more efficient, there are many fewer unoccupied market niches than 10 years ago and the competition in each niche has become more professional.
This makes doing business more challenging now. But, on the other hand, it has become easier in some ways. For instance, business-support systems are more efficient. The legal environment and enforceability are much better, the banking system is better, with cheaper access to capital, and there is a higher reliability of business services.
Thirdly, a generation exchange has taken place. The most active people, in terms of consumers and professionals, are between 25 and 40 or 45 years old. This group has hardly experienced the old system in its professional life and has been formed largely by the new system. Whereas some years ago you had to fight with the old patterns and systems, now there is a much higher level of professionalism.
What are challenges facing businessmen in Poland in the next four to five years?
As I mentioned, the market has become much more professional and that trend will continue, making competition even stronger than now. The next challenge will be in continued growth, but now it will need to be based on a solid foundation. Good companies in Poland will need to be able to compete not just in Poland, but on any other market as well.
In some ways competing in Poland will become more difficult than elsewhere in Europe. This is because although you have the same level of competition, the market is a lot shallower in terms of size. This means that business will need to be very focused on profit and loss in order to meet their financial targets.
What are the biggest risks new investors face?
Many people who come here do not sufficiently recognize the competitiveness of the market and level of development. Instead they focus on the existing or ongoing inefficiencies in terms of bureaucracy, legal systems, etc. They need to develop a strong, appropriate and market-oriented strategy-focus on the right products and series at the right prices. The Polish market, demanding as it is, will punish even small mistakes.
What has been the key to your success in building the EMF businesses?
On the one side, we have managed to recognize market opportunities, and we recognized them in time. For instance we saw a good moment when people were interested in luxury perfumes or children's toys. And then we were quick to the market and efficient in terms in commercial strategy and customer service.
Also, we always worked under maximum pressure in order to be efficient. We normally didn't have too much money to invest so we didn't waste our investments and we also avoided the temptation to get satisfied too quickly.
So, in a sense, it was by not falling asleep and by being focused on bottom-line results, which is the most crucial thing to long-term success.
What do you value most in a senior executive?
I value that hard-to-find combination of two characteristics: a high level of vision combined with strong executional capability.
By vision, I mean an understanding of the market but connected to the ability to think creatively and generate appropriate and efficient responses to the market. In other words, the ability to generate a strategy and build products, brands and solutions for the market to fill consumer needs. It is also important that an executive not only understands the market today, but what will happen in the next two to three years, thereby generating solutions to the future needs.
By comparison execution is simple, but it is hard to do. It requires taking a vision and connecting it to activities in order to get the results. This implies leadership, intelligence, and focus among other things. Only rarely do you find people who have a combination of both of these traits.
How has doing business in Poland changed between the early years and now? What are the key features for doing business here now?
It is obviously difficult to be short when describing a revolution. Really the changes in Poland are multidimensional. One key change is that the market has become much more efficient, there are many fewer unoccupied market niches than 10 years ago and the competition in each niche has become more professional.
This makes doing business more challenging now. But, on the other hand, it has become easier in some ways. For instance, business-support systems are more efficient. The legal environment and enforceability are much better, the banking system is better, with cheaper access to capital, and there is a higher reliability of business services.
Thirdly, a generation exchange has taken place. The most active people, in terms of consumers and professionals, are between 25 and 40 or 45 years old. This group has hardly experienced the old system in its professional life and has been formed largely by the new system. Whereas some years ago you had to fight with the old patterns and systems, now there is a much higher level of professionalism.
What are challenges facing businessmen in Poland in the next four to five years?
As I mentioned, the market has become much more professional and that trend will continue, making competition even stronger than now. The next challenge will be in continued growth, but now it will need to be based on a solid foundation. Good companies in Poland will need to be able to compete not just in Poland, but on any other market as well.
In some ways competing in Poland will become more difficult than elsewhere in Europe. This is because although you have the same level of competition, the market is a lot shallower in terms of size. This means that business will need to be very focused on profit and loss in order to meet their financial targets.
What are the biggest risks new investors face?
Many people who come here do not sufficiently recognize the competitiveness of the market and level of development. Instead they focus on the existing or ongoing inefficiencies in terms of bureaucracy, legal systems, etc. They need to develop a strong, appropriate and market-oriented strategy-focus on the right products and series at the right prices. The Polish market, demanding as it is, will punish even small mistakes.
What has been the key to your success in building the EMF businesses?
On the one side, we have managed to recognize market opportunities, and we recognized them in time. For instance we saw a good moment when people were interested in luxury perfumes or children's toys. And then we were quick to the market and efficient in terms in commercial strategy and customer service.
Also, we always worked under maximum pressure in order to be efficient. We normally didn't have too much money to invest so we didn't waste our investments and we also avoided the temptation to get satisfied too quickly.
So, in a sense, it was by not falling asleep and by being focused on bottom-line results, which is the most crucial thing to long-term success.
What do you value most in a senior executive?
I value that hard-to-find combination of two characteristics: a high level of vision combined with strong executional capability.
By vision, I mean an understanding of the market but connected to the ability to think creatively and generate appropriate and efficient responses to the market. In other words, the ability to generate a strategy and build products, brands and solutions for the market to fill consumer needs. It is also important that an executive not only understands the market today, but what will happen in the next two to three years, thereby generating solutions to the future needs.
By comparison execution is simple, but it is hard to do. It requires taking a vision and connecting it to activities in order to get the results. This implies leadership, intelligence, and focus among other things. Only rarely do you find people who have a combination of both of these traits.
